1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a print control device and a program for controlling a printing device (capable of switching its printing method between color printing and monochrome printing) to make the printing device print out an image corresponding to print target data specified from outside.
2. Related Art
Color printing devices, equipped with color materials (inks, toners, etc.) of multiple colors and realizing color printing by the combined use of the multiple color materials, are widely known today. Among such color printing devices, those equipped with a black material so as to execute the printing (on a sheet of paper, etc.) just using the black material in cases of monochrome printing (while using multiple color materials in cases of color printing) are well known.
Meanwhile, among print control devices for controlling a printing device capable of switching its printing method between the color printing and the monochrome printing, a well-known print control device is configured to instruct the printing device to print out the print target data by the monochrome printing (irrespective of whether the print target data is color data or monochrome data) when a monochrome printing instruction is received from the user.
Since the running cost for the color printing is higher than that for the monochrome printing, there have been proposed print control devices that place restrictions on the color printing. For example, some of such print control devices are designed to reduce the running cost of the printing device by instructing the printing device to print out the print target data (specified by a user) by the color printing when the user has color printing authority (the authority to use the color printing function) while instructing the printing device to print out the print target data by the monochrome printing when the user does not have the color printing authority. Examples of such a printing device are disclosed in Japanese Patent Provisional Publications Nos. P2004-348630A, P2005-301613A and HEI 08-130654.
The above print control devices, restricting the execution of the color printing depending on the user, are capable of reducing average processing time of the printing device since the color printing takes more time to form the print image on a sheet compared to the monochrome printing. Further, thanks to the reduction of the average processing time, the printing device is prevented from holding unprocessed print jobs for a long time.
However, if a print control device is configured as above to instruct the printing device to execute the printing of the print target data necessarily by the monochrome printing when the user (specifying the print target data) does not have the color printing authority, serious dissatisfaction can be caused to such users. Further, in cases where the printing device is used for business purposes, not giving the color printing authority can cause disadvantages in work to numbers of employees.
Thus, the above method giving the color printing authority to particular users only is insufficient for properly reducing the running cost and the average processing time of a printing device without causing the disadvantages in work.